Infecting Your Marketing Plan Virally

Most of us know about viral marketing campaigns. They are the goal of many marketers and some people are great at them. So, what exactly is a viral marketing campaign? Simply, a pure viral campaign is one that spreads on its own with little effort and money on the creator's part. What are some viral examples?

• Youtube videos that spread like wildfire
  
  
• E-mails that get sent over the globe in a short period of time
  
  
• Hotmail- The original free e-mail service that spread like wildfire
  
  
• One Red Paperclip- This guy decided to trade a red paper-clip he had on his desk for a house. He did it in 14 trades
  
  
• Million Dollar Home Page- This guy sold a million pixels on his page for $1 per pixel
  
  
• Burger King's 2004 Subservient Chicken campaign- Type in a few commands and make the chicken do what ever you want him to do
  
  
• The Blair Witch Project
  

While people may spend money launching these campaigns, the viral nature comes when it's picked up by the public and passed on. Word of mouth is a vital element in viral marketing. When hen done right, your marketing campaign will have elements of viral marketing in it. As you create your campaign, think about how you can incorporate some or all of these elements into it. These are some of the things that help campaigns go viral:

• Open Access- You want your campaign accessible by everyone. For example, don't make people sign up to an e-mail list for a campaign you want to go viral. This doesn't mean that you don't have a mechanism to capture contact information, you just don't want to make it a prerequisite before someone can experience the viral message.
  
  
• Encourage Communications- If you have the ability for people to leave comments about your campaign, great. If not, find a way to give people the ability to comment
  
  
• Wow Them- What is it about your campaign that delivers the WOW! factor? Is is unbelievably cute? Cutting edge? Hilarious? Extremely useful? Against the odds? Never been done before?
  
  
• Push Emotion Buttons- The cute baby or puppy in the YouTube videos spread like wildfire because of the emotions they elicit. What emotion can you stir up?
  
  
• Encourage Proliferation- Never restrict people from posting, copying, embedding, or sharing anything about your viral marketing campaign. There is a time to restrict information sharing. Anything about your viral marketing campaign is definitely not the time. Release all information about your viral campaign and thank people for sharing it anytime they do.
  

The bottom line is that if you try to restrict access, dissemination of information, or any aspect of your viral message, you are shooting yourself in the foot and possibly setting yourself up for less than stellar results. Commit to building the viral message right and turning it over for others to help spread the news about it, and you are well on your way to creating a memorable, successful viral marketing message.

Tony Eldridge